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After no deal to end Strongsville teachers strike April 21, school board sets sights on June

Strongsville Teachers Strike Commons

Negotiation teams for the Strongsville Education Association and the school board could not come to a collective bargaining agreement April 21, ahead of the SEA's eighth week on strike.
(CORY SHAFFER, SUN NEWS)

INDEPENDENCE- Yet another negotiation session in the seven-week teachers strike failed to produce a deal April 21, according to a press release from the school district.

School board President David Frazee said in the release that the Strongsville Education Association "won't take meaningful steps to end their strike" and that the school board is prepared to ride out the remaining 32 days in the school year with substitute teachers.

"While it
is not ideal, if forced to finish the year with substitute teachers, we
will," Frazee said. "The SEA leadership has yet to take
the board's offer to the membership for a vote."

SEA President Tracy Linscott did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Frazee said the school board's April 14 proposal, in which the school board moved off of its previous proposal and offered to move teachers up half a step in each of the next two years, was rejected by the SEA's negotiation team "out of hand."

“Our negotiation team attended another meeting today, only to find SEA continues to insist on unreasonable economic and contract language terms," Frazee said.

The SEA's new proposal would reinstate full step and column freezes
across the board, and provide a stipend of $1,500 each year to any
employee who's not eligible for a step increase.

But it drops the teachers union's previous proposal to restore
teachers who have had their steps lost to the level they would be on had
the steps never been frozen in the first place, resulting in an
across-the-board, three-step jump for teachers not at the top of the
step.

The school board's April 14 proposal would move teachers up half a
step in 2013-2014 and another half step in 2014-2015, and would provide a
one-time cash payment of $1,200 to the employees at the top of the
step.

Both sides have agreed to eliminate future Voluntary Professional Growth raises.

The SEA is also seeking language to place a ceiling on the ratio of students to teachers: 25 students per teacher at kindergarten through third grade and 27 at fourth through sixth grades. Middle and high school teachers would not teach more than 145 students per day.

The school board has not sought to add any language pertaining to class sizes or student-to-teacher ratios.

No further meetings were scheduled at the end of the April 21 session.

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